Numbers
by Nearly headless Natalie
Summary: Or, when Arithmancy strikes back against Dumbledore's Divination War


((First off--Disclaimer: No, I don't own Harry Potter, the films, or any of its assorted merchandise. Do I vastly regret this? Maybe just a little. Just a bit.

This is a one shot, that's all. For those of you who are more familiar with my comedy type stories (taking a cue from Gildery Lockhart, as I suggest looking at my profile, especially "Moste Perilous Potion Master Tales," for all my "published" works), this is more of a drama, a type of story I find more challenging than comedy. Just a head's up.

No, this is not inspired in any way, shape, or form by the American television series "Numbers." They just have the same title.

Finally, if you'd like to hear a bit of the rationale behind this story, please read the author's notes at the end of the story. If not, I'm putting them there anyway, because I've been writing fanfiction for a long time and can be overly verbose like that. So there.))

Numbers

By Nearly headless Natalie

Black, scrawled numbers marched resolutely across the parchment in front of her. All looked chaotic, hopeless, mad—yet the ink skirmishes declared a common message—the battle had been won, and the numbers, as always, were victorious.

Wearily, the woman seated behind these numbers underlined the last number, once, twice, as if to assure herself that it was real.

It was unfathomable. It was impossible. But the numbers didn't seem to think so.

"And numbers never lie," she murmured, "Never."

Her quill turned slowly in her hand, performing a slow inky pirouette that left splatters all over the desk. She didn't seem to notice. Then again, the Arithmancy Mistress was rather famous for her unshakable concentration when dealing with numbers. The same cannot be said about her patience with people.

"Perhaps I should go over it all once more," she said aloud, "Write it all out again on one scroll. Perhaps then it will make more sense."

Immediately, she scolded herself. She was a mathematician, an Arithmancer. One used numbers in Arithmancy to discover the truth, not to fit the numbers around what one wanted to believe.

Despite however insane the truth the numbers seemed to convey.

"It can't be so mad," she said, "If it were mad, you wouldn't have started thinking about it in the first place. You wouldn't have started mapping out the equations, the probabilities. It cannot be mad if it seemed it needed to be analyzed."

Then again, she smiled grimly, most people thought she was mad anyway. Most of her conversations were conducted unabashedly out loud with herself. Poor, lonely Septima Vector. All alone with her numbers.

Vector, however, did not approve of people as a whole. So happy to hear their own voices, so pleased to use knowledge to achieve their empty ends. Numbers were never hypocritical. They were unflinching, unyielding, and didn't give a damn who they offended.

"And numbers, unlike people, don't lie," she reminded herself, flattening out a fresh parchment to start her equation once more.

The numbers soon flooded the page, creating equations about as discernable to most wizards and witches as hieroglyphics. Her students claimed that it was too complicated, the figuring too difficult. Yet to Vector the numbers flowed like an aria, filling her, as ever, with a sense of wonder and delight and well-being—that as disorderly as people could make the world, numbers could always order it anew.

Dissatisfied Arithmancy students told their friends that Arithmancy was like Divination without all the fun. Vector conceded to that. Arithmancy was the magical discipline which used numbers to determine the future. Divination was the magical discipline that used crystal balls, tea leaves, and horoscopes to determine very little of the future. Early in her career, Vector made the mistake of discussing the differences and, quite frankly, the weaknesses of Trelawney's methods in comparison to hers. She chuckled to herself—she had never forgotten the Divination professor's scandalized reply.

"The future is not something that can be simply inked onto parchment, Septima!" she had said, "The future is hidden, obscured by the mists of the present. The future cannot be studied and written like—like a _first year essay_!"

At this point, Minerva McGonagall started to laugh, which caused Trelawney's ire to transfer to the Transfiguration professor.

But, of course, Minerva's skepticism for Divination was legendary. Vector sometimes fancied she would have liked to live in McGonagall's world—everything was accomplishable through rational thinking, careful planning, and remembering that There Was a Logical Explanation for Everything. But McGonagall lacked imagination—the desire to try different equations, numbers, vectors that could lead to new possibilities, a trait essential in an Arithmancer. In fact, Vector fancied herself to be rather a mixture of both McGonagall and Trelawney, an imaginative explorer of the future that used numbers and equations for rather less dramatic but more accurate determinations. In fact, the only professor in the school that used both creativity and science together would be—

Vector froze, her quill twirling restlessly once more. After an ink blot threatened to overtake her lately finished equations, she resumed her writing with renewed intensity.

Would he understand? In order to become a Potions Master, he had to have studied Arithmancy. But this was far more detailed than using Arithmancy to determine the reactivity of ingredients with one another. If Vector ever had the opportunity to publish her findings, it would be considered the most complex equation of her career.

And the most controversial. If it was indeed true.

_If_. The gall of that word to intrude upon her numeric certainty.

Still, Vector supposed she was not entirely impartial—she had been his colleague for so many years. He was her favorite breakfast partner, actually. While she typically sat next to Filius Flitwick for lunch (his usual cheerfulness was always a helpful boost for her own spirits) and then next to Aurora Sinistra for dinner (they always split the rich Hogwarts desserts, in order to feel a little less poorly about their self-esteem), she always sat next to him during breakfast. The other staff members could hardly fathom why. He was as friendly as a rudely greeted Hippogriff on a daily basis and was, if possible, in worse spirits in the morning. He usually had to ingest two cups of very strong black tea before he would even be capable of grunting a "thank you" for passing the butter. Yet, in that short half hour before their classes and after his tea, they would talk, about nothing, really. But she felt (and she had often hoped he felt as well) a kinship of sorts, like misunderstood, starving artists who were struggling to preserve their unique skills in the waves non-creativity that surrounded them.

He even sometimes allowed her to see some of his equations when he was improving upon a potion. He even, a handful of times, allowed her to borrow his Potioners Monthly journal, while she would loan him her Arithmancy Monthly in turn.

Which was as close to a declaration of friendship as unsociable people such as themselves could make.

Vector almost never went to breakfast now.

She sighed as she, once again, wrote the summation of her efforts.

It was the same. The calculations were sound. The information was correct.

And now? Would she march right to his office? Would she show him her findings, explain what she supposed, and suggest that he—

She stood up from her chair, her head pounding. She rubbed her eyes behind her glasses, inexplicably exhausted.

For a mad moment she considered throwing the parchment into the fire, then taking the ashes and scattering them to the wind. What could she, the crazy Arithmancy professor that talked to herself, do to convince the others that everything they see with their eyes—their sane, rational, and misguided eyes—_is a lie_?

What can numbers do they all _want_ to be blind to the truth?

Numbers. It's always about numbers. Not what people want to think but what the numbers say they _should_ think.

Vector's face hardened with resolution. She carefully folded up her findings and slipped them into a small satchel. She pulled on her cloak, to mask the winter chill in the castle, as well as to disguise herself from friend and foe alike.

She couldn't tell the others about her findings. They would never understand or accept equations telling them to alter their determined perceptions. Yet it was still not too late—not too late to acknowledge that someone knew the truth.

And Vector knew she was correct.

Because Septima Vector, while socially challenged and emotionally distant, was _never_ wrong about numbers.

"Enter." The delivery was as clipped and cold as sleet falling on pavement. It was a tone that offered forbidding threats of hard, uncomfortable chairs to wait on, abrupt if any answers to impertinent questions, and absolutely no offers of tea.

Vector walked into the Headmaster's office warily. The other teachers (the real teachers, as McGonagall called them, not those awful Carrows) had maintained distance from the Headmaster's office. McGonagall had apparently braved the office in mid-September, before being very firmly informed that the current Headmaster had always rather thought the position of Assistant Headmistress to be superfluous once the Hogwarts letters were sent. When McGonagall warmly refuted this idea and mentioned the previous Headmaster, it was also silkily suggested that the position might be done away with _entirely_ if the Assistant Headmistress had nothing better to do than reminisce about past staffing. Unwilling to leave the students under the care of the Carrows, McGonagall retreated before she actually exploded in fury. Since then, no one had dared intrude upon the Headmaster's office.

To her surprise, the office looked much like it had before under Dumbledore. Indeed, the chairs were not uncomfortable, but were the usual plush, luridly colored armchairs. The fire was brightly burning in the grate, next to which sat the centuries old tea set that had belonged to headmasters long before Dumbledore. Silvery whirly gigs spun silently and swiftly, their uses unknown by all. Indeed, if it wasn't for the conspicuous lack of Fawkes the Phoenix, Vector could pretend that Dumbledore still remained Headmaster.

However, the presence of Severus Snape standing beside the grand desk rather shattered her illusion.

If Vector had been of a more imaginative bent, she would have taken the lack of changes in the Headmaster's office as further evident for her conclusions.

However, Vector noted these things like a person who absent mindedly checks the time every few moments. It existed, but its importance was minimal. After all, she had the numbers—what more proof did she need?

Snape frowned at her. She felt rather glad—after all, if he only managed a frown, he must not be terribly annoyed with her. The absence of a sarcastic comment also suggested his surprise at seeing her. She couldn't lose this advantage while she had it.

"Vector," he said.

"Headmaster," she replied.

His face was blank, but his arms, which had been lightly crossed earlier, tightened convulsively, protectively. McGonagall and Flitwick, the most senior and valuable staff members practically spat out Snape's "Headmaster" title, as though they had swallowed a particularly nasty dose of Skele-Grow. Shockingly, he ignored their scorn, never offering them so much as a nasty look or sarcastic reply.

Still, her respectful greeting was received with surprise, however well disguised.

"I'm sorry to disturb you at such an hour," Vector continued, "But I'm afraid I've discovered a quandary. An Arithmetic quandary."

Snape had recovered himself admirably. "I'm hardly an expert in the field, Vector—in fact, I believe that is _supposed_ to be your specialty. Perhaps you should keep your Arithmetic quandary to yourself a bit longer, perhaps after I've finished evaluating the staff job availability for next year. Now, if you don't—"

"It concerns the school, Headmaster," she hastily added, "In fact, it concerns you."

He snorted quietly and smirked at her.

"I always thought you were beyond playing fortune teller—you had always seemed to leave that to Trelawney. You would use your science to study such idle things?" His eyes widened in mock interest. "Tell me, Vector, what will I have for breakfast tomorrow morning, I must know."

Vector sat down in the seat in front of the desk. Snape, strangely, remained standing.

"Headmaster," Vector said calmly, "You've known me for nearly 20 years. Do you really think I would abuse the complexities of Arithmancy for idle interest?"

"Explain then." It was not a request.

Vector took out her results. Snape snatched them from her and glared down at them. His lips tightened.

"This is not an explanation, this is gibberish—it doesn't make any sense."

Vector softly laughed. "Those were my thoughts exactly, when I started the equation, nearly seven months ago."

Snape's perceptible double take as he looked up from Vector's equations gave her perverse satisfaction. Yes, he understood what she meant.

"Tell me, Headmaster," she softly said, "Do you play chess?"

He nodded slowly.

"To someone who does not play the game, it looks ridiculous. The pieces are scattered hurly-burly about the board with no direction, they don't move the same way, the same amount of steps. But the players can see the path their pieces are travelling—they can see their strategies while others not playing the game _cannot_."

Snape continued to watch her in silence, his face as hard and emotionless as the side of a sheer cliff.

"I started working on this equation at the beginning of July when things…things weren't making sense. Things were too muddled, too…simplistic."

"Or are you looking for complexities where there are none? When really everything is _exactly_ what it seems?"

"You misunderstand me, Headmaster. Arithmancy doesn't complicate things—it works out the future into a single solution. People complicate everything—but the events of last summer were _too_ simplistic…too widely accepted. When I attempted to calculate the probability of--" Vector gulped slightly, no one had said this to Snape's face yet, no one had had the nerve to mention it directly-- "--the events of the night on the Astronomy Tower happening exactly as popular belief would have it, the probability was extremely small. Which means that there were variables missing in that equation. Variables that others were not considering when they made their deductions."

Vector gave a soft laugh. "People don't pay me much notice. I hear things. I listen to conversations. I ask questions that no one remembers answering. Information that is supposed to be secret is always easy to find when you are considered irrelevant."

There was a long pause. Snape studied the parchment with unseeing eyes.

"I've never considered you irrelevant, Septima."

Vector was aware that this was perhaps the closest thing to a compliment she'd ever heard from him.

"You wouldn't, Headmaster. After all, you are a chess player."

Snape slowly pivoted on the spot, turning his back to her, a movement that somehow seemed both graceful and broken. His fingers traced the edges of the numbers.

"Don't call me that." It was spoken so softly Vector almost didn't hear it.

"I'm sorry?"

"Don't call me Headmaster. Not here."

"Severus!"

Vector turned sharply to look at her former employer's portrait. Albus Dumbledore had always seemed everything amiable and good-natured to Vector, beaming from the Head Table as though he were the proud grandfather of every child in the school. His current expression forcibly reminded Vector that the old grandfatherly Headmaster had also been the most powerful wizard in the world.

Snape didn't turn his head but instead continued studying Vector's equations.

"She already knows, Dumbledore," he tonelessly informed the portrait, "It's all here—in the equations. She knows what you've done."

_She knows what _you've_ done._ Snape's dormant accusation filled the room like thick smoke, physically acidic in its resentment.

"I didn't _know_ anything," Vector interrupted, "The numbers knew. They always know."

"Then we will win, Septima?" Dumbledore asked swiftly, "The boy will succeed?"

"The boy?" Vector asked, negligently, "Oh—Potter. I've no idea whether you'll win the war or not or if he's the 'Chosen One.'"

Snape looked sharply up from the parchments. "Then what use are these?" At the same moment, Dumbledore asked, "Can you begin equations to determine that?"

Vector looked between the two men, straightening her glasses. She decided to deal with the largest absurdity first. "Determine the outcome of a _war_? Impossible. That would be like trying to put a tracing spell on every owl in the wizarding world. There are too many variations, too many probabilities—too many—" Vector searched the ceiling, as if looking for a divinely inspired word. "Too many _people_ to muddle things up. If I was misinformed on so much as the type of broom a wizard flew, it could bungle up everything." Vector shook her head sharply. "No—it would take several Arithmancers to even come close to a working formula, and you are hardly given to free distribution of information, Professor Dumbledore."

His change of title was as clear as the bitterness in her voice.

"I couldn't endanger Severus or the war, Septima, not even for—"

"An accurate possibility of what may happen?" Vector inquired firmly, "So instead you chose to depend on Divination, a magical discipline so bizarre as to make Sybill Trelawney ordinary, to wage your war. Yes, Professor Dumbledore, I believe we understand each other perfectly."

In the nearly twenty years Vector had been under Dumbledore's employ, she had been the perfect employee. Quiet, efficient, and indulgent to Dumbledore's part time job as the official meddler of the wizarding world. Whether Vector approved or not was not an issue—as long as Dumbledore did not interfere with her concerns, she did not look closely at his.

But when he went so far as to use Divination as the ultimate answer to the greatest war the wizarding world had ever seen—Vector could no longer be silent.

Especially considering the chess piece he was offering to the both the white and the black side as bait.

Severus Snape was now looking at Vector intensely.

"If this isn't about Potter," he asked slowly, "And it isn't about the war, what use are these?"

Vector rose from her chair. She dipped one of Snape's quills into his red ink and slowly circled two numbers, one of which was the final answer. Then she looked at him calmly.

"I'm not interested in the war, Headmaster Snape. I know what people say about me—Septima Vector, all she cares about is numbers. Well, it's true, and I'm not embarrassed to admit it—because numbers have been the only things that have ever understood me in return." Snape did not interrupt but continued looking at her. Vector appreciated his unspoken honesty. "And I know it won't matter who wins the war—not to me, anyway—no one will bother a pure-blood Arithmancer with no outspoken Muggles sympathies. If it is callous for me to say that I don't care about a He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named takeover, then it is so. But I couldn't let the truth be hidden when numbers told me otherwise." She turned her back to Snape, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and unable to understand why. "But people need their secrets, as Dumbledore and you both know. We cannot announce your true loyalty, nor would anyone care to listen. But I wanted to—inform you of your options."

"Options?" His controlled voice sounded as though he were asking about the weather

"Of survival. After You-Know-Who's fall. Assuming everything goes to plan, the Potter boy does what he must and such."

The silence stretched so long that Vector was forced to turn and look at him. Snape's face was slack with shock as he stared at the numbers.

"You…this is about my survival?"

Vector looked down at the floor, studying the flagstones. She wasn't sure if she felt more uncomfortable that her own assumption had been confirmed—that Severus Snape had not expected to live after the war—or that he was so surprised that she would be interested in his chances of living.

Vector forced herself to nod sharply. Think about the numbers, she inwardly chanted.

"These calculations are based on the premise that your loyalty is with Dumbledore rather than You-Know-Who and that the—events of last year have been—incorrectly understood by everyone. As that seemed to tabulate, I then calculated your chance of survival. The first number is the possibility of surviving normally—if Potter accomplishes his goal, and so forth. It's—it's quite low as you see." Snape nodded, his hair swinging like pendulums across his thin face. Not for the first time, Vector wondered how old Snape was, or if age was a moot point considering his calm acceptance of his imminent death.

"The other is if you take methods to prevent your death."

"Methods?" Snape growled, "Such as fleeing?"

Vector rose and walked to the door. "No. Such as giving everyone the impression that you're dead without actually being so."

Snape was looking at her with his carefully blank expression in place. "You do realize that there is almost no potion or spell in existence that will manage to give the impression of death, at least one that can be managed plausibly."

"I also realize that you are a man of more than fair intelligence," Vector replied, "And if you wanted to think of something, you could."

Vector turned and walked to the door. "I assume you now have a good deal to think about, Headmaster. I shall leave you for the evening."

Her hand twitched on the door knob. She had done what she had come to do—nothing more was needed. The numbers said it all—

Yet even Septima Vector was not immune to basic human communication. Without realizing it, she turned back to Snape.

"You will not be at breakfast tomorrow, Headmaster?" she asked softly.

He glanced up from the parchments, a rare expression of confusion flitting across his brow.

"I haven't been at breakfast all year, if you recall correctly, Vector," he answered.

"Yes," she answered. She tried to think of something meaningful—something heart-felt—something—dammit, anything! Anything but bland generalities. If only equations could replace words, she thought furiously, if only equations could express feelings rather than truth. But—yes, that was it—

She squared up her shoulders. "Yes. Yes, I have noticed, Headmaster. I would be hard pressed not to."

Silence for a moment, only the crackling of the fire to offer a soundtrack to the very un-dramatic drama unfolding in the Headmaster's office. Snape stared back solemnly at her. While his face was bland and expressionless, Vector could see the ends of eyes crinkling slightly. "I have also found breakfast to be very unpleasant this year."

Vector smiled—her first in a long time—and left the office.

The next morning Vector sat alone at breakfast, pushing her eggs around her plate. She thought about how to demonstrate solving equations with uncertain variables to her sixth year students. She thought about picking up some more quills and ink from Hogsmeade. And she thought about people and numbers and whether she had been wrong after all. Perhaps numbers and people weren't so different after all.

Because sometimes even people can tell the truth.

((Hadn't originally intended on Vector being the main character of this story, but she rather took over, despite her lack of people skills.

While this story actually satisfies a lot of issues in the HP canon (did Snape make any friends among the staff? How on earth did such an intelligent person not think about ANTI-VENOM or PHOENIX TEARS when your evil boss looks like a SNAKE and hangs out with a large poisonous SNAKE?), I feel I should make some comments.

Vector does not love Snape. Snape does not love Vector. This is not a love story. This is not even a pre-love story. At best, this is a story of friendship between two very socially challenged people. The end.

I have no idea how Arithmancy works. According to Wikipedia, Arithmancy is the study of divination through numbers. I don't know if it's equation based, probability based, ect. In fact, I'm the least mathematical person in the world, so I find it amusing that I'm writing this story. But I have assumed that equations are involved and that these equations deal with probability of future events. I did not go into detail because I haven't the foggiest what that detail would be.

Yes, I realize the possibility that Snape did not die at the end of book seven is nil, as Rowling confirmed it herself. Yes, I realize that this story proves that I'm walking hand in hand with denial. And I'm all right with that. Would you like to join us? In all seriousness, consider this a possibility story--perhaps if Snape had talked with Vector, he may have escaped and went to live on a beach far away somewhere, perhaps where he could learn to not hate himself and, by proxy, the world less. Delusion, I know--but a satisfying one.

Hope you enjoyed it! Leave a review, if you will!))


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